NAME
Date::Extract - extract probable dates from strings
VERSION
Version 0.02 released 13 Feb 08
SYNOPSIS
my $parser = Date::Extract->new();
my $dt = $parser->extract($arbitrary_text)
or die "No date found.";
return $dt->ymd;
MOTIVATION
There are already a few modules for getting a date out of a string.
DateTime::Format::Natural should be your first choice. There's also
Time::ParseDate which fits some very specific formats. Finally, you can
coerce Date::Manip to do your bidding.
But I needed something that will take an arbitrary block of text, search
it for something that looks like a date string, and build a DateTime
object out of it. This module fills this niche. By design it will
produce few false positives. This means it will not catch nearly
everything that looks like a date string. So if you have the string "do
homework for class 2019" it won't return a DateTime object with the year
set to 2019.
METHODS
new PARAMHASH => "Date::Extract"
arguments
time_zone
Forces a particular time zone to be set (this actually matters, as
"Tuesday" on Monday at 11 PM means something different than
"Tuesday" on Tuesday at 1 AM).
By default it will use the "floating" time zone. See the
documentation for DateTime.
This controls both the input time zone and output time zone.
prefers
This argument decides what happens when an ambiguous date appears in
the input. For example, "Friday" may refer to any number of Fridays.
The valid options for this argument are:
nearest
Prefer the nearest date. This is the default.
future
Prefer the closest future date.
past
Prefer the closest past date. NOT YET SUPPORTED.
returns
If the text has multiple possible dates, then this argument
determines which date will be returned. By default it's 'first'.
first
Returns the first date found in the string.
last
Returns the final date found in the string.
earliest
Returns the date found in the string that chronologically
precedes any other date in the string.
latest
Returns the date found in the string that chronologically
follows any other date in the string.
all Returns all dates found in the string, in the order they were
found in the strong.
all_cron
Returns all dates found in the string, in chronological order.
This method will combine the arguments of parser->new and extract.
Modify the "to" hash directly.
extract, ARGS text => "DateTime"s
Takes an arbitrary amount of text and extracts one or more dates
from it. The return value will be zero or more "DateTime" objects.
If called in scalar context, only one will be returned, even if the
"returns" argument specifies multiple possible return values.
See the documentation of "new" for the configuration of this method.
Any arguments passed into this method will trump those from the
parser.
You may reuse a parser for multiple calls to "extract".
You do not need to have an instantiated "Date::Extract" object to
call this method. Just "Date::Extract->extract($foo)" will work.
FORMATS HANDLED
today; tomorrow; yesterday
last Friday; next Monday; previous Sat
Monday; Mon
November 13th, 1986; Nov 13, 1986
November 13th; Nov 13
13 Nov; 13th November
1986/11/13; 1986-11-13
11-13-86; 11/13/1986
CAVEATS
This module is *intentionally* very simple. Surprises are *not*
welcome here.
SEE ALSO
DateTime::Format::Natural, Time::ParseDate, Date::Manip
AUTHOR
Shawn M Moore, ""
BUGS
No known bugs at this point.
Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-date-extract at
rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at
. I
will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of
progress on your bug as I make changes.
SUPPORT
You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
perldoc Date::Extract
You can also look for information at:
* AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
* CPAN Ratings
* RT: CPAN's request tracker
* Search CPAN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Steven Schubiger for writing the fine
DateTime::Format::Natural. We still use it, but it doesn't quite
fill all the particular needs we have.
COPYRIGHT & LICENSE
Copyright 2007 Best Practical Solutions.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the same terms as Perl itself.